The menu for this term:

Harrington Hill Weeks 1 & 2 January 2023

School Meals at Harrington Hill Primary School

Since May 2019 the Harrington Hill kitchen team has been working very hard to transform school lunches and educate children on making good food choices. Everything on the menu is freshly made including bread, all the sauces, marinades, fruit salads, desserts and much more. The cooks are constantly adapting the menu to include more fresh fruits and vegetables, and working out ways to make healthier ingredients more appealing to the children such as blending a variety of vegetables into pasta sauces. With five different nationalities in the kitchen team – St Vincent in the Caribbean, Nigeria, Columbia, Cyprus and England, there is always a diverse selection of flavoursome food on offer. Nuela’s chicken Jollof rice, Ulku’s Bulgar wheat and hummus, Shirley’s fried fish and Maribel’s colourful salads are all proving to be very popular with the children.

We are using some of the best food suppliers such as Natoora for fruit and vegetables who supply lots of London’s top restaurants, Brixham Seafish from the coast near Torquay who bring us fresh fish each week and Fenns Butchers who supply us with top quality halal meat.

Our executive chef, James has had over 13 years’ experience in hospitality, cooking in restaurants, hotels, private catering, cooking for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and is even developing recipes for a robotic kitchen.

James is bringing his expertise to train and inspire the cooks and make sure the children get the best quality school lunches.

We have introduced cookery lessons back into school. We recently taught a Spanish class about fruits which involved tasting various seasonal produce and making a fruit salad together. The class really enjoyed trying new fruits such as mandarins with green skins, finger limes, green naval oranges, persimmons and one student tried (and enjoyed) kiwi fruit skins.

Each year, we hold a ‘Healthy Choices Week’ where the children learn about nutrition and healthy eating. Activities have included making simple healthy desserts and snacks without using any refined sugar.

We also grow fruits and vegetables in our school garden. The children have been involved with planting and harvesting the fresh produce. This lets them see where their food comes from and makes them enjoy eating it even more.

We feel that with these changes, the food culture in the school has really improved. More and more people are talking about food and ways to keep improving school lunches. Staff and children continue to share their ideas and how best to educate everyone about the importance of healthy, nutritious food.

Even with the setback of lockdown, Harrington Hill helped out feeding the local community by making healthy food packages from surplus ingredients with the help of an amazing group of volunteers.

Charges

Our  charges for a school meal are currently £2.20 a meal.